The magazine reports that NASA contractors moved the two, 59-foot-long X-34s from open storage to a test pilot school in California's Mojave Desert last week.

Workers from Orbital Sciences, the X-34's original builder, will inspect the two robotic rocketships with an eye to flying them again, the magazine said.

The X-34 program was part of a mid-1990s movement to reduce the number of rocket stages needed to get into orbit. NASA gave up on the idea citing technical difficulties.

However, in 2004 aerospace designer Burt Rutan won a $10 million competition by flying his craft Space Ship One into near orbit, proving the concept is viable.

Huntsville aerospace engineer Tim Pickens was lead propulsion engineer on Rutan's suborbital craft, which won the $10 million Ansari X-Prize. Pickens is now lead engineer on Rocket City Space Pioneers bid to reach the moon to win the Google Lunar X Prize challenge.